ALASTAIR:
Weeks had come and gone since Val and her mother returned home. Though my eldest little girl and I were not on bad terms, my situation with Merari and even Harlyn was a little rocky. Well, a little more than rocky.
Harlyn still hadn’t completely accepted the fact that Valene was home, and she seemed quite cross with me for having as good a relationship with her as I did. It didn’t make sense to me but the best that I could figure was that maybe she was resentful of the fact that Val became the one thing that she never thought she should be.
I could not begin to understand the complexities of my baby girl’s mind and at this time of my life I felt it a waste to even try.
I knew enough to love her unconditionally, and that was enough.
This was all besides the fact that things had been too shaky around Shadow Veil to be concerned with such trivial matters.
Was I still concerned. Of course, I was. What kind of father and…whatever Merari considers me, if I wasn’t. Though…I guess what Merari considered me at this point was something that I more than likely would not be content with. Dad beat dad, comes to mind if I’m being honest with myself.
“You alright back there, alpha?”
Toran had been checking in with me on and off for the last hour or so as we lurked through the trees for any sign of the enemy.
They’d been running amuck over the last few weeks, and it was getting out of hand. We had decided that we should go to them before they could get to us.
Nightfall was when they usually tried to attack and during the day, no matter how hard we searched they were nowhere to be found.
We waited till it was close to that time of their arrival and began our own hunt. Needless to say, I’d been…. distracted though I am ashamed to admit it.
Toran knew this and made it a point to insert himself into my head to make sure that I stayed on point. This time, however, it was not my Beta who decided to reel me in.
“I’m fine, John,” I said through the link. “How is everything going up there?”
“The area is clear, but I sense that something is coming. We’re on guard. Just waiting on the rest of you.”
Both betas and deltas of the Blood Moon as well as Shadow Veil flanked ahead. Ares, and I stayed at the rear, canvasing anywhere that may have been missed. Some of the younger generation joined as well. Harlyn, Talon, and Penelope were among the few and I proudly admit that they were doing very well.
What I must admit was the most remarkable, however was Valene and her mother.
Valene’s power was magnificent and among the rarest that I had ever seen. In bursts she would appear and then completely disparate into a hoard of winged-shadow creatures. It was an amazing sight to behold. With her power, she was thorough and swift, yet graceful.
Merari, on the other hand’s power was similar only in the burst of appearing and then disappearing. A mist seemed to follow her whenever she took flight to get further ahead.
“There’s something ahead.” Ares announced.
“Lead the way.”
We followed the large lycan through the forest, and then everyone stopped upon a clearing.
It was an…extraordinarily off-putting sight. Everyone looked on in shock and repulsion and most of all, confusion.
Merari and Valene appeared through shadow and mist; eyes aglow as they surveyed the area along with us.
“A dead hoard,” said Merari. She and Valene approached closer.
“Wait!” I barked. Of course, they didn’t. Bloody stubborn these two were.
“Calm down, dad,” said Valene. “They’re all dead.”
I accompanied them anyway. And so did Ares.
“Why does this bother me more than seeing them alive?” said the young lycan alpha as we studied them further.
“Scary, are we, alpha?”
She hardly glanced back at the significantly larger beast whom she was taunting. A grumble resonated from Ares’s lycan before their attention returned to the spectacle before them.
Valene took another step closer. “Careful, love,” said Merari with concern.
When Valene glanced dismissively at her and then back at the corpses, I knew that it hurt her. Every little thing that Merari said to Valene seemed to be taken the wrong way.
“She’s right, Vale,” I backed Merari. “We don’t know-”
My words were immediately cut off by the beast nearest Valene sprouting up and pouncing at her.
Fortunately, Valene was swift on her feet and immediately she grabbed the feral beast by its mouth, holding it wide before twisting with such force that she snapped its neck. The beast came crumbling to the ground.
“Valene!” Everyone shouted in concerned unison. We all rushed to her to see if she was alright.
“I’m fine,” she took a step back from everyone. It was evident that she was not a fan of being coddled over. “Back off. Just-everyone-agh!” her sudden movement seemed to bring something to her attention. She looked down at her abdomen and grimaced. “The bloody bastard bit me!” she hissed.
“Valene, you need to go to hospital!” I exclaimed. “We don’t know what sort of bit that is-”
“I said, I’m fi…ne... I’m fine.” Her words were starting to slur and even she seemed surprised by it.
“Valene,” I took another step closer to her. “Sweetheart, you are not fine.”
“We need to get you too medical, now!” Ares snarled, stepping forward, but Valene immediately retracted from him.
“I said I’m fine. I just need to heal.” she walked away. “Give me…give me a minute.” she walked away from us all. “I just…” we watched as her walk began to slow down.
“Va…Valene?” My heart began to drop.
She stopped, and her feet buckled.
Before any of us could move, Ares caught her in his arms. He was naked and in his human form. “Go.” He started back toward the way in which we came. “I will take care of her.”
The protective father in me wanted to rebuttal, but I knew that we didn’t have time for such trivial matters. She needed help, and we needed to figure out what was going on. We had to get to the others.
Before another word could be spoken, Ares disappeared into the forest to tend to Valene.
“Let’s go.”
“Are you sure-will she be alright with him?” Merari asked with concern.
“If no one else, Valene will be safe with Ares.”
******
ARES:
My heart dropped to my knees when I saw her legs give out from beneath her. Before I could think, I was in human form again and she was in my arms.
I wasted no time in trying to reassure Alastair that I had no ill intent. The most important thing to me now was getting my mate to someone who could heal her wounds.
As I raced through the forest, I couldn’t help but replay the words in my mind that I heard Harlyn whispering worriedly to herself as she saw Valene being attacked.
“Why didn’t you listen? Why didn’t you listen, Valene?!”
The words were like a broken record in my mind. It was hard to ignore Harlyn’s fear for Valene’s safety-even through my own concerns.
The girl’s thoughts and emotions were constantly warring with one another where her sister was concerned. Too bad she was too prideful to confess this.
When we arrived to medical, I burst through the doors with full determination as she began to run cold in my arms, the black veins that once enraptured my body, seeking to still my heart now fighting to get to hers.
“She needs help! Now!” I growled.
Every nurse in doctor within twenty-foot radius of us swarmed and they immediately took Valene from my arms. It was only then…after she was taken from me that I actually felt naked.
I watched them take her away and immediately I started to follow. “Alpha, we need a minute.”
“I’m not leaving her side!” I barked. “Get out of my way!”
“Sir, please!” the doctor begged. “We need all focus on her. I know that you are concerned, but this is a matter of life and death. Allow us to work on her as she allowed us to do for you.”
It wasn’t until he said this that I realized that he was the same doctor from over two years ago that saved my life. Had he stuck around, maybe that nurse would still be alive.
“So, be it,” I hissed under my breath. “I want status on her every minute.”
“You will have, it, alpha. I swear we will save her. Until then why don’t you go get dressed.” As he spoke, he was steadily shuffling away from me to follow the other doctors so that he could begin working on the little inhuman.
“Come, alpha. Let’s get you something to put on,” a male nurse approached me.
Reluctantly, I followed, my mind still on the Pequena.
I didn’t bother putting a shirt on. As long as the main parts were covered, I didn’t care.
After checking in with Zevi, and updating Alastair concerning his daughter, I made a beeline to her room.
Just as the doctor promised, he kept me linked to the situation. They finally got her stable after half an hour of working on her.
“You can go in now, alpha,” said the doctor. I glanced at his name tag; Warrin, his name was.
I nodded a thanks to him and then entered the room. There she was, hooked up to bells and whistles. A rare blood’s scent filling the space of the room. Mm, these doctors must have been specially trained to deal with the little inhuman.
I stood against the doorframe of her room, arms crossed, studying her.
Her eyes were closed, and her wild hair was draped over her pillow like blanket. They’d torn most of her clothing off, leaving a deep green lace bra and boy-short panties to match.
I’d like to think myself a gentleman, but it was hard not to admire her perfect form. What made it harder still was the fact that that perfect little body lying in that bed was meant to be mine. Yet she was too stubborn to give in to it.
With a resigned sigh, I walked over to the side of her bed. I wanted to see the wound that was inflicted upon her. Covering it would do no good, so they didn’t. My hand grazed near the surface of the wound. It was deep…and her skin was soft. The spark was there. Hard to ignore the affect that a simple graze did to me.
“Reel it in, Ares,” Bain growled in the back of my mind.
“There is no harm in admiring, Bain.”
My eyes further scanned her body and immediately I saw another wound. The beast got its claws in her, and it seemed that it wasn’t just its bite that was infected.
“That’s not good,” I muttered under my breath.
“The sooner we put these beasts down, the better.” I had to agree with Bain.
“Curse those Rogues,” I hissed, and then pulled the sheet from her ankles to cover her body.
It was as I grazed the surface of her ample breast with the thin sheet, my mind finding it hard to stay out of the gutter, that I noticed something that averted my attention completely.
I had noticed ever since Valene’s return that she always wore a choker. It wasn’t worth mentioning nor making a mental not of until now.
The doctors must have removed it to make sure that there were no more infected bites that they’d missed. There was no fresh wound there, but there was an old one.
Across her neck, there was a scar-one that I knew was gaping when it was first put there.
Immediately, upon seeing this, I began to imagine what happened to her that day. My heart began to ache for her, and anger began to resonate within me.
Before I could think better of it, my hand reached for the scar. When a hand significantly smaller and quite swift grabbed mine.
“You…do that…and you will…pull back a nub.”
I looked down into the blood-shot and weak umber gaze of Valene, glaring daggers at me.
Stubborn Pequena.
I retracted from her. “You’re awake.” She struggled to sit up, her eyes steadily on me. “You need to rest Pequena,” I told her, and gingerly pressed against her shoulder to keep her down.
“I am fine,” she tried to convince me. “I just need to walk it off-” As soon as she tried to get up, she toppled back onto the bed.
I wanted to stop her again, but instead I allowed her the space to fail so that she could see how wrong she was. When she fell back, I did catch her, however. The least I could do was soften her fall.
She snatched away from me and nearly pulled the fusion tube from her arm. Now, she was starting to get on my nerves.
I knew that putting my hands on her would make this far messier than I intended it to be, so I used my telekinesis to force her back into the bed. She was too weak to fight against me.
“Release me,” she growled.
“Not until you stop acting like a petulant child,” I countered. Another growl escaped her thick plum-colored lips.
And just like the petulant child I accused her of being, she pouted, crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at me. It was sort of cute, though.
“How does it feel for the shoe to be on the other foot?” I asked her as I recalled the way she subtly reprimanded me that night at the hospital when I tried leaving against everyone’s orders but my own.
“It is not the same.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “You are being far more stubborn than even I was, and that is saying something.”
She knew that I was telling the truth. That must have been why she changed the subject. “Is everyone alright?” she asked.
“Just concerned about you.” She really didn’t seem to like to be the center of attention. It seemed to frustrate her to hear this. “Does that upset you, little inhuman?”
“I don’t need anyone worrying about me.”
“Apparently, you do. Your bullheadedness placed you in a bad situation. Had no one been concerned about you, you’d no doubt be dead right about now. Or do you just enjoy acting like a spoiled little brat who finds discontent in everything in life?”
She grimaced. She couldn’t look at me. I struck a nerve with her.
“You’re right,” she said.
“I’m sorry?” Did she say what I thought she said?
“I…am angry,” said the little inhuman. “I am…livid…and enraged,” she glared at me. “I don’t know how to deal with it…and I know that I am…” her words veered off.
I couldn’t delve into her thoughts and to be honest, I wasn’t sure that it would be appropriate at this point. She was trying to relinquish something that had been weighing on her for more than likely two years. She couldn’t, though. Not yet, it seemed.
“You didn’t have to take me to medical,” she said, hardening that shell of hers again.
“Yes, I did,” I replied. “You are my responsibility.”
“No, I am not.”
“Yes, little inhuman, you are.” I countered with finality. “Whether you wish to accept it or not, you are my mate, I said to her. “As much as your stubbornness is starting to really get on my nerves…you are stuck with me. Whether you like it…or not.” she grimaced. “So, either you make this easier on yourself, and lie down, shut up, and rest, or I shut you up and force you to rest. I’d prefer the latter,” I grinned as I had my ways of shutting the Pequena up. Ways that would satisfy me deeply.
For the first time since her return, I saw the glint of her former self in those mesmerizing umber eyes. A timidness that I found even more alluring than that bratty attitude of hers. Under that hard and brash exterior was an innocence that I wanted to explore.
“That’s more like it,” I said as I mentally looked forward to the day that I made Vale Wade mine. Forever.